This invention relates to a server construction for efficiently and conveniently maintaining the temperature of chilled wine or other beverage or food in a container.
The conventional way to either chill wine or maintain the coldness of wine while the wine bottle sits on a table, counter, etc., is to place the wine bottle in an ice bucket filled with ice and water. Typically, a cloth napkin is also placed over the wine bottle. This method, although effective, is messy because ice must be heaped about the bottle, and the bottle and bottle label are made wet, become slippery, and may drip on the table or counter top when removed from the ice bucket. Also, the ice bucket is quite bulky and cumbersome to handle.
A number of proposals have been made for improving upon the abovedescribed methods of serving chilled wine or other beverage, and some of these are discussed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,564,165, 3,302,428, 2,068,384, 4,037,428, 1,999,670, 3,282,068 and French Pat. No. 1,127,267. These proposals, however, generally either are not very effective in maintaining the beverage in the chilled condition over desired extended periods, are still bulky and cumbersome, require prechilling of the cooling device and placement of the cooling medium about the bottle, or generally have the same disadvantages as does the conventional wine cooler or ice bucket. Chilling wine or other beverage, of course, can easily be accomplished by placing the bottles in the refrigerator some hours before serving. What has been needed is a convenient, compact, attractive, immediately effective, and mess-free arrangement for maintaining the wine at the table or bar at the refrigerator temperature over periods of time of up to two hours.